News From The Future:

From the excellent group blog When Falls The Coliseum comes this intriguing report from the future:

Future headline: Boy, 7, in critical condition after light bulb raid

February 3, 2015

A Culvert County second-grader is in critical condition tonight after a SWAT team shot him four times in the process of serving a warrant to check his home for illegal light bulbs.

The Culvert County SWAT team was responding to a tip that was forwarded to them by General Electric, which says it received [1] the tip from an anonymous source concerned that Timmy Bartholomew, 7, was doing his math homework by light provided by a 100 watt incandescent bulb, rather than [2] GE's more energy-efficient CFLs. Thanks to light bulb efficiency standards passed as part of the 2008 [3] energy bill, traditional incandescent bulbs are no longer legal.

A police spokesman said he regretted the fact that Mr. Bartholomew needed to be shot so many times, but he said that an internal review conducted before lunch today showed that the police had followed [4] standard protocol.

"The police officers walked up to the front door and rang the bell," the spokesman said. "They calmly and clearly announced that they had come to check the family's home for incandescents. Mr. Bartholomew became belligerent, and refused to allow entry to officers, who were forced to use a battering ram to break down the door. At this point, Mr. Bartholomew attempted to urinate upon the officers."

Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time. Report abuses.

Prediction. By 2012 it will be hard to find an “educated” person who ever truly believed in anthropogenic global warming. Nonetheless, it will be impossilbe to change the law banning incandescent light bulbs.

Personal experience. In a year and a half I went through 6 (six) CFL bulbs in a kitchen light fixture, while a regular incandescent light bulb in the same fixture kept running. I haven’t recycled a single CFL. And never will.

I use them in most fixtures, but the ones that are on and off a lot go through CFLs ridiculously faster than incandescents. Probably just need to remember to stock up before they’re gone.

It’s a fucking ridiculous law, though. If using energy is bad, tax energy. Why the hell does it matter whether I’m wasting it by having the wrong kind of light bulb or by watching too much TV? CFLs are nice, but they aren’t perfect for every use — otherwise, people wouldn’t still buy them.

Fuck, I hate people with Big Ideas. Hates them, we do. Pride is the most destructive sin of all.

Nick should take a page out of Balko’s playbook, there are enough REAL LIFE examples of police abuse of power, missconduct and/or civilian casualties that we shouldn’t need to troll poor fiction writing to make a point.

Also, for most, who are unindoctrinated into the libertarian zietgeist, the idea of SWAT teams policing for lightbulbs and there being casualties over such trivialities will be so far fetched as to not make a point and be counterproductive due to its seeming absurdity.

At the same time, anyone who’s read enough of Radley’s posts can look at this and think “yeah, that’s entirely possible”. I can easily see almost this exact story happening one day (except for the warrant part. Why would they go through the trouble to get a warrant?)

I’ve got CFLs throught the house and outside as well. I realy can’t see any pattern to the light failures. Some last for years, even outside, being turned on and off daily, others that are used rarely fail more rapidly. I can’t even see a pattern in the same light. I owe it up more to mfr’ing standards than anything else.

And no, I’ve never recycled one either, nor do I intend to, in spite of any hectoring from the nattering wife.

Somehow I get an image of black kids on street corners selling incandescent bulbs and drive by shootings over the best corners. I can see the DEA/Light Bulb Director announcing a giant bulb bust on the border and that we are about to turn the corner on illegal bulb trade.

True – they have not been banned outright but the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 effectively bans them with efficiency requirements on lights putting out between 310 and 2600 lumens. This basically wipes out incandescent bulbs between 40 and 150 watts.

I went to stock up on various incandescent bulbs the other day, only to discover Costco only carries CFLs now.

You missed the hoard rush. We’re on to Crisco now.

Small hardware stores are the best place left to find contraband bulbs. The big boxes bent over on this one early and didn’t restock, even when incandescents were selling like…forbiddden light. They know who holds the whip.

Does the idea of “regulatory certainty” exist? It should. Something like this: “If you want to maintain your standard of living, you have to hoard every downmarket consumer item liberals notice exists, as soon as they notice it, because it’s about to get lawyered out of existence.”

Sorry they got you this time. The new bulbs suck. I hope you don’t love pan-fried chicken.